


The Darkness of Night

by SoDoRoses (FairyChess)



Series: Greek Myths Verse [2]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Disturbing Themes, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Orpheus and Eurydice Myth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-26 01:11:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15652707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyChess/pseuds/SoDoRoses
Summary: It's a long way to walk





	The Darkness of Night

**Author's Note:**

> this idea came from a  tumblr post by randomslasher, and im SO pleased i got permission to write it

It’s cold.

Virgil expected that.

But it’s not the  _kind_  of cold he expected.

The room is huge, easily the size of a football field, and the ceiling is so high he can’t see it (maybe if he tilted his head back, but he’d kept his eyes on the foot of the throne at the end of the room and when he’d gotten there he’d hit his knees, and he can’t look up now, because if he looks up and they say  _no-)_

“I am not saying this to be cruel,” says the king of the underworld, and his voice is – not kind, not gentle, but not cutting either.

“If i give him back to you, it will only be a temporary reprieve. All mortals die – it is the way things are. Would you put off your pain for a few years, some decades at most? And then have to relive it all over again?”

Virgil’s vision is blurring, so he doesn’t realize the king has stepped down and has bent down to lift his head. He’s wearing simple clothes, blue and black, and his face is set.

“Or worse? Would you trade places with him? Would you have him endure it instead of you?”

 _He’s right_ , says a sad and quiet voice in the back of Virgil’s mind,  _You knew it was hopeless. You knew there was no point. You’ve wasted his time and probably insulted him and you_ know  _he’s right-_

But Virgil isn’t listening to his head right now. He hasn’t since the moment Patton – left ( _died, died, dead and gone, you were_ right there,  _why didn’t you_ save him). He’s listening to his heart, and Virgil’s heart has always,  _always_ , been selfish.

It’s why he needs Patton.

“Even-,” his voices breaks, and he clears his throat to try again, “Even if it was only for a day it would be worth it. I’d go through it a hundred more times, a thousand, if I could have him one more day,”

But the king is already shaking his head. “And if you die?”

Virgil wants to hold his head high and be brave and look  _noble,_  look like someone they can take seriously, but he feels like he’s been hollowed out and his insides scraped raw, every part of him feels like its been peeled open like overripe fruit, like he’s slowly bleeding to death-

He tries to speak but his words come out in sobs.

“Patton,” he breathes in shakily, “Patton is so much stronger than me,”

 _Selfish,_  says the voice,  _Selfish, selfish, selfish, how could you-_

“ _Please,”_ he begs, one last time, one last desperate grab, and he’s already shaking his head - 

Another figure, brighter and warming the air around them  just by standing near comes up behind the king. 

“Darling,” he says, quiet, so quiet Virgil thinks maybe he’s not supposed to hear him, “Look at him. He’s come all this way,”

“Roman-,”

“Come,” the prince of spring takes his husband’s hand and draw him away from Virgil, far enough away that he can’t hear them anymore. The king looks increasingly frustrated but the prince is casting Virgil looks that at best are sympathetic and at worst merely pitying, but hope is starting to traitorously bloom in Virgil’s chest.

Finally, the king throws his hands up and Virgil is too dumbfounded to feel any kind of relief or joy.

They come near him again, and the prince is smiling smugly but the king’s face is grave.

“Understand,” he says gravely, “You will only get one chance. One,”

“OK,” Virgil trips over himself to get the words out, “Yes, i understand, yes,  _thank you,”_

He raises his hand to cut Virgil off and Virgil nearly swallows his tongue in the effort to stop his voice.

“You will walk back to the world of the living,” he says, “His ghost will follow you there,”

Virgil opens his mouth to thank them again but a sharp look stops him dead in his tracks.

“If you look back,” he continues, “Even one time, even for just a second, he stays here forever,”

Virgil’s chest is constricted with distress but he nods his head rapidly, not trusting himself to speak.

The king stares at him for a long time, then sighs in what could be resignation.

“Very well,” he says, and no, it’s not resignation at all, is it. It’s pity. The king pats him gently on the shoulder, shakes his head slightly, and turns and walks away.

Virgil gets off his knees. It’s slow going, because he’s shaking from head to toe, jittery and uneasy, but he has a job now, he can do this  _one thing_ , do it for Patton.

The prince smiles at him, encouraging and still a little smug. He gives him a cheery thumbs up and Virgil returns it, awkward and quivering. His smile softens a little.

“It won’t be that bad,” the prince says encouragingly, which does the exact  _opposite_  of make Virgil feel better, because if he feels the need to tell Virgil  _that,_  its probably not going to be as simple as it sounds.

* * *

The path he steps onto when he walks out of the throne room is not same one he followed to get here. That path was straight, wide enough for a car or two, and lined with stones. This path is so crooked it looks almost jagged, narrow and overgrown; it twists into a thicket of brambles and off into a forest so dense he can’t see more than maybe fifteen feet in any direction.

He starts walking.

He’s  _almost_  sure he’s not going in circles – there are small details; a distinctive scar in a trunk, a broken sapling with the top half obstructing the path that he has to climb over, a puddle he has to jump – but he might as well be, for all he seems to be moving forward. The density of the forest doesn’t change. Not the tiny amount of light coming through the canopy, not the roughness of the path, not the distance he can see through the bushes and tree trunk; nothing. He feels like an ant on a mobius strip.

The whispers start so quiet he doesn’t hear them at first – they blend in with the rustling of the dead leaves in the slight wind and are further drowned out by the ones crunching under his feet. But gradually he becomes aware of them speaking to him.

 _there’s nobody behind you,_  says one.  _Nobody at all, silly boy, foolish boy, you fell for it-_

 _It’s a trick,_  Virgil thinks, digging his nails into his palms and shoving his hands in his pockets.  _It’s a trick, don’t look, they’re_ lying.

_Nobody, nobody at all, you walk alone,-_

He doesn’t reply, doesn’t let them know they’re getting to him, bites the inside of his cheek to keep from speaking. He walks like that, tense and unyielding, for hours, until the skin gives and his mouth fills with blood and still, he doesn’t look.

* * *

He turns a corner and the forest abruptly ends. Stretching out in front of him, far as he can see, is a field of tall grass and spiky white flowers. It startles him, and his first instinct is to look behind him to see the forest he’s left but he stops himself at the last second, heart hammering at how close he came to messing it all up.

He walks.

The field can’t really be called hilly but it does slope very gently up and down, and the motion of climbing and descending becomes almost, but not quite, calming.

He should have known it wouldn’t last.

He crests one slope, and there, just on the other side, is Patton.

His whole body jerks, and his head twitches violently as he goes to look behind him and stops himself so hard that he wrenches his neck, which starts to throb. The Patton in front of him looks real enough, but he’s wispy around the edges, like he’s on the edge of evaporating.

He’s sitting in front of a gravestone, sobbing.

He knows he should look away, just walk by the illusion and pay no attention, and he tries, he  _tries_ , but he can’t help the glance to the side as he passes Patton – he’s sobbing, great hiccuping sobs that shake his whole body – and sees his own name, etched in the stone, glaring at him in accusation.

 _You would pass on this pain,_ come the whispers,  _You would have him take your place, you would give him your grief and leave him to weep,-_

“ _Shut up_!” he snarls, angry and hurting, hunching in on himself and pulling his shoulders up to his ears, like he can shield himself from the accusations burrowing into his chest because they’re right, they’re  _right,_ he’s being  _selfish, selfish, selfish-_

“Shut up,” he says again, voice cracking, and this time, he doesn’t know if he’s talking to the whispers or himself.

 

* * *

The field ends just as abruptly as the forest did; ahead of him is a sheer cliff face that extends to the left and right as far as he can see without turning his head too much for the risk. There’s a single hole in the rock, just big enough that he doesn’t scrape the sides or bump his head as he steps inside and begins to walk up the incline.

It’s dead silent – there are no whispers here.  _Unnervingly_  silent, and he wonders why until he realizes his footsteps are also making no noise.

It’s just uncanny enough that it makes his heart pound, and he’s starting to wonder if it really was a trick, if he’s just going to walk forever in the underworld until he dies of dehydration or starves, when he sees, just at the top of his line of vision, the tiniest pinprick of light.

Relief floods his chest. The end is close, and if he can just tolerate the oppressive silence for a few more minutes it’ll be over-

“Virgil?”

Virgil’s voice leaves him in a startled cry, and he stops dead.

“Virgil,” Patton says, his voice terrified, “Virgil, something’s pulling me back,”

Virgil feels like he’s on fire; he feels like he’s had ice-water injected into his veins. He’s feel like someones reached in between his collarbones and wrapped their hands around his windpipe, he can’t breathe, he can’t move, he can’t do anything-

“Virgil!  _Virgil!_ Virgil, something’s wrong, you have to help me,-”

“It’s a trick,” he whispers desperately, “It’s another trick, keep walking,”

But his feet don’t move.

“Virgil,  _please!”_  begs Patton.

Slowly, Virgil starts to walk.

Patton is crying now, pleading, and other sounds have joined him, cackling voices and the scrape of claws against the stone, and he walks and walks, and why _, why_ isn’t the light getting any closer.

“ _Virgil!_ ” screams Patton’s voice, echoing off the stone, “ _Virgil, please, please, don’t leave me here, don’t leave me,_ ”

Virgil pulls his hands from his pockets, covers his ears, and keeps walking.

“Virgil,” the voice is just a sob now, and somehow isn’t any quieter despite the cotton muffling Virgil’s hearing, “Virgil, don’t leave, don’t go,  _please_ turn around, please,  _please,_ ”

“ _You can’t trick me!_ ” Virgil screams wildly.

He keeps his ears covered, for all that it does him no good, and keeps his eyes forward, where the sky just visible, and keeps putting one foot in front of the other, even though every cell in his body is screaming for him to turn around.

“ _Virgil!”_  comes one last scream that chokes off at the end. Then comes a sound, like something being dragged on the stone floor.

A sound that seems to get further and further away.

Virgil is sobbing now, his breath hissing between his clenched teeth, his whole body shaking with the force of it, and he’d thought, stupidly, that the pain he’d felt at the foot of the throne had been as much as he could bear, that if he ever felt worse than he did in that moment it would surely kill him, but it’s nothing compared to this,  _this,_ the sound of Patton getting further and further away from him as he willingly, deliberately walks away.

The dragging peters off, too far away to hear now, and Virgil walks the final ten feet into the light of the sun.

He almost turns.

He freezes, still choking on his tears, just outside the mouth of the cave he’s crawled out of, and the deepest, most terrified part of himself says _this is another trick._

He walks forward.

He doesn’t know what’s coming next, but he thinks, spitefully and vindictively, through his sobs, that they can’t possibly do anything worse to him, that there’s nothing they could  _possibly_ throw at him now that will come close to the agony of Patton begging for Virgil’s help while Virgil ignores his voice-

“Virgil,” says Patton.

Virgil’s vision swims with another rush of tears, but he grits his teeth and speeds up. His anger makes him clumsy, and his feet catch and stumble on the rocks around him as he climbs down the rocky hillside.

“Virgil,” says Patton, and oh,  _oh_ , how  _stupid_  he was to dare them, even in his own head, because if there is only one thing in the entire world that would make Virgil want to turn around more than a Patton that’s hurting it’s a Patton that speaks with love.

“Virgil, sweetheart it’s OK,” says Patton, his voice soft and achingly gentle, and Virgil’s heart clenches so hard his next sob comes out in heartbreaking wail. This illusion comes with the sound of a second set of footsteps crunching along behind him, and the sound of Patton’s breathing speeding up, as if he’s trying to catch him.

“Virgil, _”_ he says, voice breaking, and the footsteps speed up a little more, “Virgil, honey, you can turn around,”

Virgil shakes his head so fast the sky seems to spin, and the crunching footsteps sound like they’re right behind him and-

Patton lays his hand on Virgil’s shoulder.

Virgil spins on his heel so fast that Patton crashes into him and they both go crashing to the ground, legs tangled together, and Virgil can’t see anything because his vision is too blurry but he can feel Patton cradling his head in his hands, thumbs wiping away his tears, and pressing dozens of tiny kisses all over Virgil’s face. He can feel Patton’s body under his hands as he runs them frantically over any part of him he can reach, assuring himself that it’s real, he’s real and here and breathing and  _alive-_

He doesn’t realize he’s saying all of this out loud until Patton cuts him off with a kiss that’s little more than a press of lips and a sharing of air, because they’re both still sobbing.

When Virgil’s eyes finally clear enough that he can see, Patton’s face is there, scant inches from his own. He’s red and blotchy, his lashes stuck together and his hair in disarray from where Virgil has dragged his hands through it over and over but his smile could shame the sun.

He’s the most beautiful thing that Virgil has ever seen.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell about sander sides with me at [ tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors](http://tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors.tumblr.com)


End file.
